Marking the first time the company has released a full-frame cinema camera, Canon today announced the EOS C700 FF. The C700 FF is a version of the existing C700 built around a new, Canon-crafted CMOS sensor with 5952 x 3140 resolution and an aspect ratio of 17:9 (38.1mm x 20.1mm). It’s debuting next month at NAB 2018.
The camera will be available in both PL- and EF-Mount versions (with B4 adapters also available) and the sensor’s form factor yields the same image circle (43.1mm) as Canon’s EOS 5D pro still camera line. Owners of the original EOS C700 camera will be offered an upgrade option to the full-frame sensor through a Canon service center, the company said.
“This has the exact same body as the C700 with a new sensor block inside,” said Alex Sax, pro market specialist in Canon’s Burbank office. “You have more space on the sensor, so it is much more suited for anamorphic lenses and a higher-resolution anamorphic workflow.”
Since the sensor has a true horizontal resolution of 5.9K, there will be a number of ways to format the final image — 4K full-size (oversampled from 5.9K) readout, 4K/UHD Super 35 crop (with Super 35 lenses), 2K/HD Super 16 crop (with Super 16 lenses and an adapter), and anamorphic. On-board recording at up to 4K on internal CFAST cards is supported via Canon XF-AVC or Apple ProRes codecs. Proxy data can be recorded at 2K or HD resolution to SD cards for offline editing.
Recording at 5.9K will require using the optional Codex CDX-36150 mounted on the camera back to record the Canon Raw format.
Canon says the new sensor captures 15 stops of dynamic range in Log2 format, with a wide color gamut meeting Rec. 2020 standards, making it HDR compatible. Max speed for internal 2K or HD recording is 168fps. When used with the Codex recorder, the camera supports 5.9K raw recording at up to 60fps and cropped 4K raw recording at up to 72fps.
The new camera also has a different ND system, with the ability to use three different glass filters (2, 4 and 6 stops) one at a time or stacked (for a total 8 or 10 stops of filtration).
Both EF and PL versions of the EOS C700 are expected to ship in July for an estimated retail price of $33,000, Canon said.
New 20mm Prime Glass Coming This Year
Also new on the cinema front is a 20mm prime lens that joins Canon’s existing CN-E series, bringing the line-up to a total of seven primes ranging from 14mm at the wide end to a 135mm telephoto.
The CN-E20mm T1.5 L F lens is designed to capture 4K resolution with an 11-blade aperture diaphragm, 300 degrees of focus-ring rotation and minimal focus breathing.
Canon noted that its line-up of EF cinema lenses will include a total of 21 lens models when the new 20mm CN-E ships. It’s slated to be available this fall.
Two 12G-SDI Reference Displays
Finally, Canon is bringing on a pair of new reference displays, fitting them with 12G-SDI inputs. The new DP-V1711 is the successor to the DP-V1710, and the DP-V2421 follows in the footsteps of the DP-V2420. Both monitors will accept 8K images via 12G-SDI, and will scale them down for display at 4K, Canon said.
Canon DP-V2421 reference display
Canon is billing both monitors as HDR reference displays. The 17-inch DP-1711 has a peak brightness of 300 nits and the DP-V2421 can hit a more impressive 1,000 nits, the company said. Canon’s Joe Bogacz stressed that peak brightness doesn’t tell the whole story, noting that both displays also reach .005 nits black, which makes the V2421’s contrast ratio especially impressive. In a press release, Canon said that owners of the DP-V1711 and its predecessor will have the option of paying to upgrade the displays to reach peak brightness of 600 nits — a good idea if you’re planning to look at HDR on these screens.
A new feature, luminance metering, will display HDR luminance values for individual pixels in the image so that users don’t need to use a waveform monitor to correctly evaluate exposure for HDR. “These are great tools when doing HDR on set and for mastering,” Bogacz said.
The DP-V2421 will sell for an estimated retail price of $39,000, while the DP-V1711 is expected to go for an estimated retail price of $18,000. Both monitors are expected to ship at the end of April 2018.
